Most football books are, I suppose, about success. That’s where the money is, isn’t it? Many a Christmas present will consist of the latest cliched, ghostwritten hagiography of the fabulously wealthy. Most football stories are tales of success, even though the numbers dictate that most football clubs must fail. Even failure, from the perspective of hindsight, tends to be presented as a base camp on the way to success. Setbacks are hurdled, and they serve to vindicate the eventual prize.
To some extent, as football supporters, success is what we’re all in it for too. Sure, we take the knock backs. We even relish them, as it proves we’re supporters of a real football club, and if we wanted a diet of constant success, we’d support someone obvious, wouldn’t we? But let’s not kid ourselves. We’re all in this for the pay-off. Somewhere along the line, we want the moment of glory that makes it all worthwhile.
And so now here comes a book – The Ultimate Drop – dedicated to absolute failure: relegation to the non-league. Don’t mistake such a fate for mere demotion. As the book says, the drop into the conference is far worse than that. It’s means the end of the right to sit at the table and count yourself as one of the elite 92 League clubs. Once the trapdoor’s swung, you’re just one of thousands of non-league sides. You even have to qualify for the FA Cup. This book is all about those clubs that have been through the loss of League status since automatic relegation was introduced in 1987. Individual chapters have been written by different authors, mostly supporters of those clubs, and concern nine clubs which have experienced relegation from the League – Chester, Colchester, Darlington, Doncaster, Halifax, Hereford, Lincoln, Newport and Scarborough – plus three that flirted with disaster only to pull away – Brighton, Burnley (aha!) and Carlisle. I’ll come to the Burnley chapter in a minute, as it was the one I read last, oddly enough. I suppose that was because I already knew what happened.
The strange thing is that, for a book about the worst thing that can happen to a League club, the overall impression is one of optimism. Truly, this book proves that football supporters can’t help looking on the bright side and thinking that surely, one day, their time is going to come. How else can one explain the sentiments of a Hereford fan who says:
"You will see us back in our rightful place before too long. It may not be this season, it may not be next season, but it will happen."
Good luck to him, but really…
Clearly, some of these fans have reasons to be optimistic. Some of these teams bounced back, and supporters can present their woes through the prism of revival. They’ve had some kind of pay off. For Brighton, for example, the near miss was part of the hell they had to go through before they got to where they are now. Both Brighton and Burnley supporters can feel pretty comfortable writing about those times in hindsight, because it would take some really weird stuff for that to happen again. The Brighton chapter therefore stands as an account of an effective campaign to change the course of a club. Keep it handy in case you ever need tips on how to force your club’s board out.
Doncaster supporters, meanwhile, are simply deliriously happy that they still have a club to support, and that their arsonist Chairman didn’t quite succeed in closing them down. This chapter offers a stirring story of how you can’t quite keep football down. Sentiments like this are rare:
"We lost, but it didn’t matter at all. It was just so good to actually be there. What mattered is that the Rovers still lived."
The Newport chapter tells the story of a real against-the-odds battle. As the supporters tried to resurrect their club, it’s instructive to note how the football establishment did its best to throw obstacles in their way.
Only the Colchester chapter, oddly enough, and the Scarborough chapter are gloomy. In the case of the latter, that’s probably fair enough. The writer seriously doubts whether the town will sustain a senior level of football. At the time of writing, Scarborough are bottom of the Conference.
Compare to Halifax, who seem to look back on their time in the Conference with some fondness. This was when they won a lot, picked up trophies and were one of the biggest fish in the pond. Who wouldn’t miss that? Their reward for leaving that behind seems to be a lifetime of trying to avoid going back there. Hmm.
Of course, in a book written by various people, some chapters will be better than others. Unfortunately I found the Burnley chapter probably the least satisfying. Perhaps it is because we’re all too familiar with the tale now. A new fan with a working knowledge of the first division table might find it a revelation. I wearied of it a long time ago, when I felt that it was used as a justification for later mediocrity. But I think the problem here is that, alone of the book’s chapters, this was written by three different people. Now, I know two of these people, and I know them to be excellent writers whose views are always worth reading. (Indeed – cards on table time – they’re London Clarets members, and I played a small role in putting one of them in touch with the Editor of this collection.) However, I understand that their three separate accounts were merged into a whole. This leaves the chapter uneven in tone, sometimes swinging between black comedy and grim recollection, and somehow it ends up lacking the tension that should have been made itself felt. I don’t want to criticise unduly. It’s not a bad chapter or anything. It’s just that, naturally, I wanted the Burnley chapter to be the best.
The Lincoln chapter provides an interesting contrast to the familiar story of 1987. We don’t often hear it from the other side. There were football supporters desperate for Burnley to lose that day, and annoyed at the fact that (for once) the establishment was on our side:
"Media attention focused intently on Burnley in the run-up to the big day. The papers were full of the ‘big club fallen on hard times’ stories. Saturday’s Football Focus never even mentioned Lincoln."
All in all, I enjoyed the book. Even though I hate Carlisle – I just do, and my reasons are valid if complex – I even enjoyed reading that chapter about their damnable failure ever to quite go out of the league. Carlisle haven’t so much flirted with disaster as shacked up with it and started thinking seriously about the wedding list. The first time it happened, it was high drama. When it happened the next year, everyone was a bit bored.
Overall verdict is, therefore, a thumbs up. The book is nicely put together, and it also contains some excellent photographs - if at times you feel you’re intruding on individual grief. See, for example, the Doncaster funeral procession, and the humbling photo of Doncaster Rovers players running out against Brighton carrying a banner saluting Brighton’s fans. That was a lump in the throat job.
But if you want real poignancy, look at the photo of Scarborough fans celebrating their apparent survival - before Carlisle’s last second goal. It could break your heart. And that, as they say, is football.
The Ultimate Drop is published by Tempus Publishing. Visit their website at www.tempus-publishing.com.
You can buy the book online at Amazon. Click here.
